1. The Holy Spirit can use all that you give to Him for your salvation. ²But He cannot use what you withhold, for He cannot take it from you without your willingness. ³For if He did, you would believe He wrested it from you against your will. ⁴And so you would not learn it is your will to be without it. ⁵You need not give it to Him wholly willingly, for if you could you had no need of Him. ⁶But this He needs; that you prefer He take it than that you keep it for yourself alone, and recognize that what brings loss to no one you would not know. ⁷This much is necessary to add to the idea no one can lose for you to gain. ⁸And nothing more.

2. Here is the only principle salvation needs. ²Nor is it necessary that your faith in it be strong, unswerving, and without attack from all beliefs opposed to it. ³You have no fixed allegiance. ⁴But remember salvation is not needed by the saved. ⁵You are not called upon to do what one divided still against himself would find impossible. ⁶Have little faith that wisdom could be found in such a state of mind. ⁷But be you thankful that only little faith is asked of you. ⁸What but a little faith remains to those who still believe in sin? ⁹What could they know of Heaven and the justice of the saved?

3. There is a kind of justice in salvation of which the world knows nothing. ²To the world, justice and vengeance are the same, for sinners see justice only as their punishment, perhaps sustained by someone else, but not escaped. ³The laws of sin demand a victim. ⁴Who it may be makes little difference. ⁵But death must be the cost and must be paid. ⁶This is not justice, but insanity. ⁷Yet how could justice be defined without insanity where love means hate, and death is seen as victory and triumph over eternity and timelessness and life?

4. You who know not of justice still can ask, and learn the answer. ²Justice looks on all in the same way. ³It is not just that one should lack for what another has. ⁴For that is vengeance in whatever form it takes. ⁵Justice demands no sacrifice, for any sacrifice is made that sin may be preserved and kept. ⁶It is a payment offered for the cost of sin, but not the total cost. ⁷The rest is taken from another, to be laid beside your little payment, to “atone” for all that you would keep, and not give up. ⁸So is the victim seen as partly you, with someone else by far the greater part. ⁹And in the total cost, the greater his the less is yours. ¹⁰And justice, being blind, is satisfied by being paid, it matters not by whom.

5. Can this be justice? ²God knows not of this. ³But justice does He know, and knows it well. ⁴For He is wholly fair to everyone. ⁵Vengeance is alien to God’s Mind because He knows of justice. ⁶To be just is to be fair, and not be vengeful. ⁷Fairness and vengeance are impossible, for each one contradicts the other and denies that it is real. ⁸It is impossible for you to share the Holy Spirit’s justice with a mind that can conceive of specialness at all. ⁹Yet how could He be just if He condemns a sinner for the crimes he did not do, but thinks he did? ¹⁰And where would justice be if He demanded of the ones obsessed with the idea of punishment that they lay it aside, unaided, and perceive it is not true?

6. It is extremely hard for those who still believe sin meaningful to understand the Holy Spirit’s justice. ²They must believe He shares their own confusion, and cannot avoid the vengeance that their own belief in justice must entail. ³And so they fear the Holy Spirit, and perceive the “wrath” of God in Him. ⁴Nor can they trust Him not to strike them dead with lightning bolts torn from the “fires” of Heaven by God’s Own angry Hand. ⁵They do believe that Heaven is hell, and are afraid of love. ⁶And deep suspicion and the chill of fear comes over them when they are told that they have never sinned. ⁷Their world depends on sin’s stability. ⁸And they perceive the “threat” of what God knows as justice to be more destructive to themselves and to their world than vengeance, which they understand and love.

7. So do they think the loss of sin a curse. ²And flee the Holy Spirit as if He were a messenger from hell, sent from above, in treachery and guile, to work God’s vengeance on them in the guise of a deliverer and friend. ³What could He be to them except a devil, dressed to deceive within an angel’s cloak? ⁴And what escape has He for them except a door to hell that seems to look like Heaven’s gate?

8. Yet justice cannot punish those who ask for punishment, but have a Judge Who knows that they are wholly innocent in truth. ²In justice He is bound to set them free, and give them all the honor they deserve and have denied themselves because they are not fair, and cannot understand that they are innocent. ³Love is not understandable to sinners because they think that justice is split off from love, and stands for something else. ⁴And thus is love perceived as weak, and vengeance strong. ⁵For love has lost when judgment left its side, and is too weak to save from punishment. ⁶But vengeance without love has gained in strength by being separate and apart from love. ⁷And what but vengeance now can help and save, while love stands feebly by with helpless hands, bereft of justice and vitality, and powerless to save?

9. What can Love ask of you who think that all of this is true? ²Could He, in justice and in love, believe in your confusion you have much to give? ³You are not asked to trust Him far. ⁴No more than what you see He offers you, and what you recognize you could not give yourself. ⁵In God’s Own justice does He recognize all you deserve, but understands as well that you cannot accept it for yourself. ⁶It is His special function to hold out to you the gifts the innocent deserve. ⁷And every one that you accept brings joy to Him as well as you. ⁸He knows that Heaven is richer made by each one you accept. ⁹And God rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice knows to be his due. ¹⁰For love and justice are not different. ¹¹Because they are the same does mercy stand at God’s right Hand, and gives the Son of God the power to forgive himself of sin.

10. To him who merits everything, how can it be that anything be kept from him? ²For that would be injustice, and unfair indeed to all the holiness that is in him, however much he recognize it not. ³God knows of no injustice. ⁴He would not allow His Son be judged by those who seek his death, and could not see his worth at all. ⁵What honest witnesses could they call forth to speak on his behalf? ⁶And who would come to plead for him, and not against his life? ⁷No justice would be given him by you. ⁸Yet God ensured that justice would be done unto the Son He loves, and would protect from all unfairness you might seek to offer, believing vengeance is his proper due.

11. As specialness cares not who pays the cost of sin, so it be paid, the Holy Spirit heeds not who looks on innocence at last, provided it is seen and recognized. ²For just one witness is enough, if he sees truly. ³Simple justice asks no more. ⁴Of each one does the Holy Spirit ask if he will be that one, so justice may return to love and there be satisfied. ⁵Each special function He allots is but for this; that each one learn that love and justice are not separate. ⁶And both are strengthened by their union with each other. ⁷Without love is justice prejudiced and weak. ⁸And love without justice is impossible. ⁹For love is fair, and cannot chasten without cause. ¹⁰What cause can be to warrant an attack upon the innocent? ¹¹In justice, then, does love correct mistakes, but not in vengeance. ¹²For that would be unjust to innocence.

12. You can be perfect witness to the power of love and justice, if you understand it is impossible the Son of God could merit vengeance. ²You need not perceive, in every circumstance, that this is true. ³Nor need you look to your experience within the world, which is but shadows of all that is really happening within yourself. ⁴The understanding that you need comes not of you, but from a larger Self, so great and holy that He could not doubt His innocence. ⁵Your special function is a call to Him, that He may smile on you whose sinlessness He shares. ⁶His understanding will be yours. ⁷And so the Holy Spirit’s special function has been fulfilled. ⁸God’s Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness and not his sins. ⁹How little need you give the Holy Spirit that simple justice may be given you.

13. Without impartiality there is no justice. ²How can specialness be just? ³Judge not because you cannot, not because you are a miserable sinner too. ⁴How can the special really understand that justice is the same for everyone? ⁵To take from one to give another must be an injustice to them both, since they are equal in the Holy Spirit’s sight. ⁶Their Father gave the same inheritance to both. ⁷Who would have more or less is not aware that he has everything. ⁸He is no judge of what must be another’s due, because he thinks he is deprived. ⁹And so must he be envious, and try to take away from whom he judges. ¹⁰He is not impartial, and cannot fairly see another’s rights because his own have been obscured to him.

14. You have the right to all the universe; to perfect peace, complete deliverance from all effects of sin, and to the life eternal, joyous and complete in every way, as God appointed for His holy Son. ²This is the only justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. ³Your special function shows you nothing else but perfect justice can prevail for you. ⁴And you are safe from vengeance in all forms. ⁵The world deceives, but it cannot replace God’s justice with a version of its own. ⁶For only love is just, and can perceive what justice must accord the Son of God. ⁷Let love decide, and never fear that you, in your unfairness, will deprive yourself of what God’s justice has allotted you.